Cardinal Mahony used cemetery money to pay sex abuse settlement (LAT)

Cardinal Mahony used cemetery money to pay sex abuse settlement
The Archdiocese of L.A. took $115 million from its cemeteries' maintenance fund in 2007, nearly depleting it. The move seems legal, but it was not announced, and relatives of the dead were not told.
By Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times

Pressed to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony turned to one group of Catholics whose faith could not be shaken: the dead.

Under his leadership in 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles quietly appropriated $115 million from a cemetery maintenance fund and used it to help pay a landmark settlement with molestation victims.

The church did not inform relatives of the deceased that it had taken the money, which amounted to 88% of the fund. Families of those buried in church-owned cemeteries and interred in its mausoleums have contributed to a dedicated account for the perpetual care of graves, crypts and grounds since the 1890s.

Mahony and other church officials also did not mention the cemetery fund in numerous public statements about how the archdiocese planned to cover the $660-million abuse settlement. In detailed presentations to parish groups, the cardinal and his aides said they had cashed in substantial investments to pay the settlement, but they did not disclose that the main asset liquidated was cemetery money.

3. It's just horrible, southernyankeebelle. People trust in these organizations and

then they pull stuff like this. It's like when I was a kid and people used to say, "If you can't trust your banker, who can you trust?" And we see where that got us ... Now, it needs to be reframed as, "If you can't trust your church, who can you trust?" Some of the churches going up around here are mammoth institutions. I think there's little spiritual about them, and it's more about $$$$$ and building to impress. I don't trust any of them.